Yahoo to shut operations in Mexico, Argentina

With Mexico and Argentina winding up, it plans to consolidate LatAm operations in BrazilReuters

Yahoo is shutting down its operations in Mexico and Argentina to cut costs and consolidate its business. This move is likely to impact less than 50 employees at the troubled internet portal.

As reported in Techcrunch, the internet firm is doing this by downsizing smaller operations even if there was a profit centre. The teams in Brazil and Florida will continue to operate and manage the entire LatAm business.

"Yahoo is focused on maximizing growth. With that in mind, we communicated to employees in Argentina and Mexico that we will be closing our offices there," a Yahoo spokesperson told Techcrunch.

According to sources, Mexico was a smaller but profitable business. It had roughly 10 employees, compared to 500 in Brazil. All the LatAm teams were apparently aware of the expected layoff for more than a year.

The downsizing in Latin America is not the first by CEO Marissa Mayer. Previously she closed some operations in parts of Asia including India, China and the Middle East, and in Europe. Yahoo, which is due to report its fourth-quarter earnings, is expected to make further announcements on restructuring.

In 2015, chief financial officer Ken Goldman had spoken about possible moves to downsize its workforce to less than 11,000 full-time employees. "We have reduced spending in areas such as workforce, facilities and discretionary expenses, and in our ongoing efforts to control expenses, we'll continue to focus our headcount on growth initiatives," he then said.

Some believe Yahoo chose to retain the Brazil centre since it is one of the growing markets holding a lot of potential, but so are India and China. Once a leading internet giant, Yahoo has tried hard to revive its lost glory but with little success.